Tuesday, June 11, 2013

The Marriage of Health Information Technology and the Practice of Medicine

Beginning in the middle of the first decade of this century digital information became essential in the business and clinical aspects of medicine.

Health care and Information technology have become inextricably bound together, and the prospects for a divorce are unthinkable despite complaints and the challenge of maintaining security.

The demand for HIT personnel continues to grow and the success of HIT is not so much technical as the most important component….human beings…who will run the system. After all HIT is merely a tool and we should never forget it, to be used like a surgeon’s scalpel controlled by a human hand and able to be over-ruled. IT will never have the judgment of a health care professional, despite what technologists dream about.

Requirements for HIT personnel are diagramed in this MAP. This interactive MAP indicates the areas of competence needed for each type of HIM position.

A key component of this recognition is the HIMSS EHR Developer’s Code of Conduct. “Representing the majority of operational EHRs in physicians’ practices and hospitals in the U.S., today, we understand firsthand the transformative power of health IT, and we offer this Code of Conduct as a reflection of our industry’s ongoing commitment to collaborate as trusted partners with all stakeholders,” said EHR Association Chair Mickey McGlynn, senior director, strategy & operations at Siemens Healthcare, in making the announcement.

ONC chief Farzad Mostashari, MD, who has been critical of some vendor practices, today gave the EHRA kudos on its initiative, especially as it pertains to patient safety.

"The commitment here is very much in line with our national plan," he said. "No customer will feel that they can’t report a patient safety event, and the vendors will investigate them, will remediate them," he said. "It’s really very positive to see the association coming together and making a statement about what we stand for. This is what we believe is the right way to treat our customers."

Medicine and health care cannot stand alone, however we must be certain that vendors and providers of our tools share and aspire to the same bar of excellence to which they serve.

Next edition will feature accountable care organizations and the changes to health information systems to support them.